


Red-and-Blue Riding Hood

by mypedia



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, post-CATWS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 01:51:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5893561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mypedia/pseuds/mypedia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a subway station in Kiev, at exactly 3:26 pm, Natasha Romanoff holds three dozen men, women and children hostage at gunpoint.</p><p>Steve had been in a meeting with Fury when the shit hit the fan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red-and-Blue Riding Hood

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Steve, Natasha, Little Red Riding Hood

In a subway station in Kiev, at exactly 3:26 pm, Natasha Romanoff holds three dozen men, women and children hostage at gunpoint. The first responder gets there at 3:31, and is rushed to the hospital with broken ribs soon after. By the time the units of law enforcement arrive, she’s barricaded the entrance, and a hail of bullets greets anyone who attempts to breach it.

SHIELD agents surround the building in the next two hours.

Steve had been in a meeting with Fury when the shit hit the fan. That may be metaphorical, but Steve’s pretty sure even the literal shit-hitting-the-fan would make far less of a mess than Natasha Romanoff, armed and loose in a city with a population of just over 2.8 million.

“Agent Romanoff is compromised?” Fury’s body had only barely tensed; this was a phone call he had received countless times. Steve didn’t even look up from the file he was reviewing- after being partnered with Natasha, he experienced some version of this first-hand at least once every few months. There hadn’t even been one incident where Natasha hadn’t managed to get herself out of whatever situation she was in on her own, with absolutely zero help required from back-up. When Fury’s hand slammed down on the table, however, Steve looked up, one eyebrow raised.

“Repeat that!” Fury barked, his entire body vibrating with coiled energy. “You’re telling me she’s working for the Russians again, and you expect me to take you at your fucking word? Now we don’t know each other very well, Agent, but I’m about to order you a psych eval!”

Steve tried to hear what the other person was saying, concern rising. It had only been a few months since they’d dismantled SHIELD, and anyone who said Natasha was a traitor… well, they probably wanted her gone- and therefore were probably HYDRA. He could make out ‘trigger’, and what sounded like ‘bomb squad’, but not much else.

Fury swore under his breath at whatever the person on the phone was saying. “Fucking HYDRA.” He bit out a few orders, and then threw the phone down onto the table so hard, the back cracked in two.

“What?” Steve asked. “She’s okay?”

“Fucking HYDRA.”

“Fury,” he said, sharply. “Is Natasha okay?”

“She is fine,” Fury replied tersely. “The city she’s running through, I’d imagine is not so fine.” Steve waited for him to elaborate. “It seems Agent Romanoff was attacked by a complex HYDRA chemical that triggered memory loss and programmed a new persona. Similar to Sergeant Barnes.”

Steve swallowed. Seriously, again? “I- can’t you… Barton. Send Barton. Last time…”

“Deep undercover. We’re on it, but he can’t be reached until tomorrow at the earliest.”

And that’s how Steve finds himself joining a squadron of agents outside the entrance of a subway station in Kiev, while his partner inside the building threatens to shoot somebody every ten minutes.

From the three-dozen hostages, fourteen are women; two are pregnant. There are nine children under the age of ten, and a couple of teenagers. When a gunshot rings out, there’s talk of shooting Natasha.

Steve closes his eyes and hopes and prays that she did not just kill somebody.

Hill appears next to him suddenly, a sombre look on her face. “She’s refusing all hostage negotiations.”

He shakes his head, eyes on the building where Natasha is the wolf, hard and ruthless and calculated. “She must have a goal. Why else take hostages?”

“She’s programmed to kill. There is no objective.”

He hears what she’s not saying. “So, what, you’re saying we should storm in there and take her out before anyone dies?” He has to stop himself from saying ‘anyone else’. They have no evidence that she’s killed someone yet apart from the sound of a single gunshot. And Steve has always given people the benefit of the doubt.

Maria looks down for a half-second before she’s cool and collected as always. “I’m saying we need to make a decision.” When he doesn’t reply, she continues tersely. “There’s an underground entrance two miles down.”

“We’re not assassinating her!” As he says it, a second gunshot echoes through the air.

She lays a light hand on his arm. “Steve. There are children in there.” After a beat: “Barnes couldn’t stop himself from killing you.”

Except Barnes did. Bucky recognized Steve, and pulled him out of the damned Potomac. Maybe a little too late for comfort, but he still did, didn’t he? Bucky was in there somewhere. Natasha has had one dose of a programming chemical where Bucky had years.

Mind made up, Steve bends down to pick up his shield, and straps it onto his back.

Hill isn’t impressed. “She’ll kill you.”

“I’ve sparred with her before.”

“This is different. She’ll go for the jugular.”

When Steve doesn’t listen, Hill calls Fury, who reams him out, especially after hearing his theory. “Captain, this ain’t a fucking fairytale and you ain’t fucking Red Riding Hood! There’s no sweet little grandma hiding in that girl! Put the damn shield down and work on a strategy that’s not a goddamn suicide mission or-”

Steve hangs up and passes the cell phone back to Maria.

“I hope you’re prepared,” she says.

“You said to make a decision.” He meets her eyes, firm and steady. “I’m making one.”

XXX

Steve sprints the two miles to where Hill says the underground entrance is. It’s tight and narrow, single file only- and he knows that neither Hill nor Fury would ever authorize sending a team in from here, only to be gunned down one by one when approaching Natasha. Appeased, he doesn’t bother piling up rocks at the entrance, which had been his original plan.

He moves quietly through the passageway, stopping only when he comes to a metal door, the hinges brown with rust. On the other side, he knows, is Natasha.

And her hostages.

He’s silent in opening the door- absolutely silent- and yet, the second he’s taken a step forward, shield up, there’s a bang, and a bullet ricochets off his shield an instant later.

He doesn’t withdraw.

“Natasha?” Steve calls, pushing his shield forward. To the right, a cluster of people are huddled on the floor.

“What do you want?”

If he held an inkling that this was a bad idea, it’s gone now. Because Natasha’s snarl is ferocious and frightening and filled with malice… but Steve knows her well enough now. Knows her tells, much as she likes to insist that he doesn’t.

Like the tiny, almost undetectable furrow in her brow, which he’s seen when Sam made them both ‘healthy smoothies’, and neither of them was quite sure what he’d put into them. And the way the skin around her eyes is stiff and tense, which he’s seen only twice: once, when she thought Fury was dead, and before that, when they’d first met and Clint was under Loki’s control.

This Natasha may be a machine. But she is also confused, and scared.

“What do you want?” she repeats, when he doesn’t reply the first time.

He holds his one hand up, the other still hanging onto the shield. “Hey, Nat.”

“My name is not Nat!”

“What is it, then?”

She pauses, thinks. Obviously, the programming was crude, at best; she hasn’t got a name. Natasha doesn’t let him see her hesitation for more than a second before plastering a smile on her face. “Anna.”

A Ukrainian name, with the way she pronounces it. Okay.

Steve takes a deep breath. Okay. She hasn’t shot him yet; that’s a good sign, right? “I’m Steve. You want to put the gun down?”


End file.
